Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On 3/27/06, Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Raul Miller wrote:
> > I find it hard to believe that this license has any relevance in the
> > context of non-copyright issues (issues of use which have not been
> > specifically enumerated by either copyright law or the license).
>
> That's an open question, and necessarily jurisdiction dependent.
> Considering the fact the GFDL isn't as restrictive as some licenses
> which outlaw forms of use which have not been overturned, I don't
> think it's a conservative position to claim that the GFDL doesn't
> restrict that form of use.
"Have not been overturned" is not the same thing as "have been
upheld".
Another problem here is that these "outside the scope of copyright
law" conflict with statements within the GFDL (including the very
same sentence in question).
> > Freedom to make copies does not give you the right to invade someone
> > else's home, office, or computer.
>
> It's quite within the pervue of the copyright holder to require that a
> condition of you having a work is to allow anyone who wants to to make
> a copy of that work, and not place technological barriers to that
> occuring. I'm not arguing that this requirement is reasonable,
> desirable or even compatible with Free Software. Indeed, I'm asserting
> quite the opposite.
So, given that the UK is the jurisdiction where we're told this is a significant
issue, if I put on a web page a copyright notice requiring that anyone making
any copies of the web page for any purpose whatsoever must allow anyone
to enter their home, business or place where the computer is installed at
any time with no restrictions for the purpose of making further copies of this
web page.
It seems to me that the claim about the GFDL is equivalent to saying that the
above license is valid.
In essence, the claim is that a person who brings a copyrighted work into
a computer (which operates by making further copies) has completely
surrendered any right to privacy, as the copyright holder can require that
anyone in the entire world have access to that computer for the purpose of
making further copies.
> What we're discussing here is what the clause in the GFDL says, not
> what a Free Software license should be doing.
That's fine, but we're also discussing copyright law, and claims are being
made which seem to conflict with the nature of copyright law.
--
Raul
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